Cry Wolf

Cry Wolf (Director: Jeff Wadlow)

This is Wadlow's first big movie. He co-wrote it with partner Beau Bauman.

More gimmicky horror; one that you can peg the surprise ending a mile away on. Cry Wolf concerns a whole bunch of spoiled rich kids going to a private school who like to play games, and within the first few frames I wanted them all dead and someone to get away with it. There's a new guy in school named Owen (Julian Morris) who has a slightly troubled past at his other schools and is apparently lucky that his father (a cameo by Gary Cole) has a big dick in negotiating his way into this new school. Owen quickly meets Dodger (carrot-topped cutie Lindy Booth), who is the ringleader of a troupe of kids who sneak out in the middle of the night to play a game where she decides who is the "wolf" and all of the friends have to try to figure out who it is--a cash prize awaits.

Anyway, that gets boring, and the next game hits a larger scale, with help from Owen. Owen and Dodger decide to send the whole school an e-mail concerning a serial killer that hits campuses, using a real murder that just happened close to the school, and gets everybody panicked about the prospect. This eventually gets Owen in trouble when it is found out, and he starts getting scrutiny from his journalism teacher (Jon Bon Jovi!). But then, kids actually start getting stalked and killed--and the joke has gotten so far that when Owen tells people he believes it's real, no one believes him.

Like I said, all these people Owen encounters are total assholes, and you want all of them to be gushing blood by the end of it. There are a lot of plot holes, and ultimately, it's not very scary.